Finding Langston Page 6

  “Thought you only came on Thursdays.”

  “Yeah, well, my mama had to work extra for her family. They’re having a big to-do party tonight and you know white folks can’t barely do for themselves,” he says, laughing to himself. Clem thinks most of what Clem says is funny.

  “So your mama keeps house?” I ask.

  “Yup, for the Franklin family, live over in Hyde Park. My sisters, they’re in high school, s’posed to be watching me, but they’re too busy with their boyfriends. So I can do what I want long as I don’t say nothing to our mama.” Clem laughs again.

  “Ain’t seen Lymon around lately. Where’s he been?”

  “Why, you miss him?” His smile stretches from ear to ear. Can’t see nothing but teeth when Clem smiles.

  “I don’t care. Just wondering is all.”

  “Errol said he may be going to a different school. Ain’t my concern.”

  “Ain’t he your friend?” I ask. Can’t believe I’m talking this much to Clem, let alone about Lymon.

  Clem shrugs and we walk side by side up another block. We must look like a sight. Me tall and thick, Clem short and skinny.

  Since I’m asking so many questions, I try another. “What kind of books you read?”

  Clem opens his satchel and pulls out a beat-up book with a picture of a map on the cover.

  “This here’s a story about a boy and his sisters. They take this boat to an island and all kinds of things happen to ’em. I already read the first, but this one’s my second. Still got nine more to read.” Clem talks so fast he barely takes a breath. Wish I could take back the question because I sure don’t want to tell him I’m reading poetry. “One day, I’m gonna join the Navy and travel the world, just like my daddy.”

  Don’t get a chance to ask Clem about his daddy in the Navy because he keeps on.

  “The best part is when they…” I’m half listening, wondering why I’m even talking to Clem but not minding how it feels to be walking with someone, anyone, to the library after school. Thinking it may feel kinda good to talk about books. We get to the corner and cross the street to the library, head right downstairs.

  “See you later,” Clem says, and starts walking to the bookshelves.

  “Clem,” I say before he leaves. “My name is Langston.”

  Clem nods and I go to the desk. Miss Cook isn’t here today but there is an older lady with gray hair. She barely looks up.

  “Put your returns in the slot,” she says.

  “Ma’am?” I say. She looks up and stares through her little round glasses, saying nothing.

  “Where can I find books on Frost and Gwendolyn Brooks and Countee Cullen and Dickinson?”

  She sighs. “Over there with poetry in the 800 section.” Now I know what the numbers mean. Call numbers, Miss Cook told me, and she explained how they work. She laughed when I asked how librarians can remember titles, writers, and numbers too. This woman at the desk says “poetry” so loud, Clem looks over. I walk fast over to poetry and I don’t see any with the name Dickinson, but I do see one by Robert Frost. I take that, and they even have the book Miss Fulton read, with poems by Countee Cullen and all the other colored poets. When she showed me I made sure to remember the words on the cover—Caroling Dusk. I take that one too.

  I wave goodbye to Clem and leave the library as fast as I can. It’s cooler now as I walk home, and even though I miss the Alabama warmth, the cold makes me feel awake. I pull out Caroling Dusk and look through the first pages. I walk and read at the same time, trying not to fall off the curbs. Sidewalks are something I can’t quite get used to, because you always got to pay attention to where you’re walking. I get to my building still reading the poetry, different from Langston Hughes but with words I like. I figure there must be a world of Negro poets I don’t even know yet.

  At the door, I hear sounds from inside the apartment and I hurry to get my key. Daddy’s home. “Daddy!” I yell soon as I see him. And then I see Miss Fulton sitting at the table.

  Daddy smiles big like he missed me. I go to hug him hard and my book hits his side.

  “What’s this?” Daddy asks. I forgot all about the book in my hand.

  “Something I’m reading for school,” I say, my face getting hot.

  Please don’t let Miss Fulton see it, I say over and over in my head.

  “I better be going,” she says in a hurry, like she’s watching something she shouldn’t be. “I’ll check in on you both later.”

  “Son, you thank Miss Fulton for all she done while I was gone,” Daddy says.

  I fold my arm behind my back, hiding the book. “Thanks, Miss Fulton.”

  “Langston was very good company,” she says, smiling at Daddy.

  I wait till the door closes to let all my questions spill out at once.

  EVEN though Daddy stayed up late answering every one of my questions about Grandma’s services, and Aunt Lena and her kids, he left early for work this morning. I can tell being away for a whole week from a job that don’t mind firing colored workers is on his mind. When I’m locking the door behind me to leave for school, Miss Fulton is coming out of her apartment.

  “Morning, Miss Fulton.”

  “Oh, good morning, Langston,” she says. “Mind if I walk with you a bit?”

  Can tell it ain’t a question. What else am I supposed to say but “No ma’am.”

  She walks next to me quiet at first and just when I get to thinking that maybe this is the one day she ran out of things to say, Miss Fulton says, “I see you got one of the books I showed you out of the library.”

  “It was just a book from school,” I say.

  “Langston.” She stops and looks at me. “There is no shame in being a reader. And being someone who loves poetry. Poetry helps us to—”

  “I ain’t ’shamed,” I say, looking back at her.

  “Well then, why did you lie to your father about the book?”

  I mumble some words.

  “What did you say, Langston?”

  “I said, ‘Can’t I have something all to myself?’”

  “Like reading?” she asks.

  “Like the library,” I answer.

  “Is that where you go after school?”

  “Don’t tell my daddy. He thinks I play with some boys after school.”

  “Well, I’m sure your father wouldn’t mind.”

  “Please don’t tell Daddy. I’ll tell him soon. Just not yet. Not now…”

  I’m gonna be late and Miss Fulton’s gonna tell my daddy and he ain’t gonna let me spend my days at a library.

  “I’m gonna be late, Miss Fulton.” I don’t wait for an answer ’fore I take off running to school.

  I’m just about calmed down ’cuz I made it to my class before the bell rang and that’s when I see Lymon sitting in back of the class at his desk, smiling. At me.

  “Take your seats please,” Mrs. Robins says to the class.

  Out the corner of my eye I see Clem, but he’s looking like he didn’t even see Lymon. I don’t hear one thing Mrs. Robins says for the next three hours till lunch. The class laughs when she calls on me twice to answer a question and I still have to say “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  I find a quiet spot in the sun away from everyone else in the school yard. No sign of Lymon, but they don’t usually bother me at recess.

  Last night I almost made my way through each poet in the Caroling Dusk book. The cover says it’s an anthology and when I asked Mrs. Robins what an anthology is, she said it means a collection. A collection of Negro poets.

  I’m careful to look up and make sure no is going inside and I’m still alone. I made a promise to myself that I’d read every Langston Hughes book they have in the library. So today, I’m starting The Weary Blues. My daddy listened to the blues back in Alabama on an old scratchy record. Sometimes he and Mama danced but it just sounded to me like an old man crying about something he couldn’t have. But Mama said the blues makes you feel the hurt deep down in your gut and the blues is
about how much colored folks go through in life and love. Not something I’d want to dance to. I wonder what Mr. Langston Hughes feels about the blues. I flip though till I find a title I like and stop at one called “Poem 4: To the Black Beloved.”

  Ah,

  My black one…

  This one I think I read before so I turn the page to another called “Harlem Night Club.” But that “Poem 4” stays in my head, even when I finish “Harlem Night Club.” I turn back.

  Thou art not beautiful

  Yet thou hast

  A loveliness

  Surpassing beauty.

  Just when I’m thinking again about that poem, I feel a shadow over me and look up to see Lymon, Errol, and Clem.

  “What you doing over here all by yourself, country boy?” Lymon asks. He’s smiling bigger than ever. I look at Clem but he looks away. “Bet you and your daddy thought I’d be gone for good, huh?”

  I ain’t in the mood for Lymon today and I don’t answer like I know he wants me to. I just sit and stare up at him.

  I notice he ain’t much taller than Clem. I stand up tall.

  Lymon snatches the book out of my hand and I go to grab it back but Errol pushes me into the fence.

  “Give it here, Lymon!”

  “Give it here, Lymon!” he says in a country accent.

  “What’s so interesting in this here book?” I know it ain’t no real question so I wait.

  He opens to a page.

  “Yet thou hast a loveliness…” He messes up all the words and I laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You can’t barely read,” I say.

  “If I can’t read, country boy”—I know I shamed him—“you can’t neither.” He holds the book to my face and rips out pages.

  “No!” I scream.

  And then he rips out some more and throws them into the air. The wind carries them across the school yard.

  Lymon might as well have ripped my heart out right along with those pages. The library and Langston Hughes ’bout the only thing that kept me going without my mama. Now I ain’t even got that. I never knew I could have a feeling so mad and so mean inside me. Madder than when Mama died and we moved away from Alabama. Madder than having to live in this city without her. It keeps growing till I feel it explode out of my chest.

  My hand reaches out quick and grabs Lymon’s arm, tight. Errol tries to pull my hand away but I don’t let go. Clem runs yelling, “Mrs. Robins, Mrs. Robins!” but I still don’t let go. Lymon’s other arm swings at me but when his bony arm hits me I only grab tighter. The book drops to the ground and I still keep hanging on tight, till I see tears coming to Lymon’s eyes. He spits in my face. He’s hurting bad but we ain’t saying anything, we just staring into each other’s eyes, me with his spit running down my chin.

  “Pick up my book,” I say finally. But he don’t move. I twist his arm a little till he drops to one knee.

  “Let him go!” Errol yells.

  “Pick it up,” I say again. And he does, slow, staring at me all the while. Usually boys and girls scream and yell like they’re at a Joe Louis match when they see a fight, but now everyone is standing around, staring back and forth at the two of us, quiet.

  I stand him up and let go just as Mrs. Robins comes over.

  “What is going on here, boys?” she asks, out of breath.

  Neither of us says anything.

  Errol starts, “Country b-b…Langston grabbed—”

  “Both of you, inside now!” I’ve never seen Mrs. Robins so mad.

  I snatch the book from Lymon and look around for the ripped pages. Not one of them in sight.

  Walking behind Mrs. Robins, I wonder what Mama is thinking if she is looking down on me.

  In my head I hear Lymon stumbling on those words, Yet thou hast a loveliness. And even though I can still feel the mad inside me and I’m on my way to the principal’s office and I’m gonna get a whupping from my daddy, I smile because now I remember that was the poem Mama wrote in her letter to Daddy.

  I waited for Daddy to give me a good whupping. And when he didn’t do that, I waited to hear him yell. He didn’t do that neither. He sat me at the table and did something I never seen him do. He looked me in the eye and said, “We gonna talk, man to man.”

  It’d be a lot faster if he went on ahead and gave me a whupping.

  “You know you can’t go fighting your way through life. Colored man got a whole lotta hurt they facing every day, we fight every one, we’re never gonna get anywhere. Bible says we—”

  “Daddy…” I wanna stop him ’fore he gets too deep into the Bible. “I know I ain’t s’posed to be fighting, but Lymon just keeps at me.”

  “You’re responsible for you. Your teacher said there was a book….”

  I told Miss Fulton I’d tell Daddy about the library. Might as well go on and do it.

  “I found a library near the school. Hall Branch over on Michigan.”

  “A library?”

  He don’t yell so I keep going. “Libraries ain’t just for white folks. This library is for residents. That means any folks that live in Chicago.”

  “I know what a resident is, son.”

  “Anyhow, I go there after school sometimes and get books.”

  “Thought you been playing with some boys after school,” Daddy says, leaning back in his chair.

  “They don’t like me here, Daddy. And it ain’t just Lymon. It’s everyone.”

  “Maybe you need to stop going to the library and find some boys your age you can play with. You shouldn’t be sitting up in a library every day.”

  “Library’s the only place in Chicago I want to be,” I tell Daddy.

  Daddy thinks on that a minute.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “It’s as quiet as Alabama. The librarian, Miss Cook, she’s real nice. She picks out books for me too.” I pull my books out of my satchel and hand him the Weary Blues book.

  “What’s this?” Daddy asks, turning the book over in his hands.

  “I found this in the library. A book of poetry by a man named Langston Hughes. He’s a colored poet.”

  Daddy still turns the book over in his hands like he don’t quite know what to do with it.

  “Remember how you and Mama used to dance sometimes to the blues?” I ask.

  His lips turn up at the corners a little bit.

  “Daddy. The library has all kinds of books. And these books by Langston Hughes remind me…of home and Mama.”

  “How’s that?” Daddy asks, serious, still looking down at the book cover.

  “Because he writes poems about being colored and living up North but missing the South and feeling lonely. Miss Fulton likes his poems too.”

  “Listen, son. I don’t know anything ’bout Langston Hughes and I sure don’t know anything ’bout any poems. Only Langston I’m worried ’bout is the one sitting here in front of me.”

  We’re quiet for a bit.

  “Can I read you one?” I ask.

  “Read me a poem?” Daddy laughs.

  “Just one,” I say.

  “Sure, go on and read me a poem.”

  I try to remember how Miss Fulton read the words, slow and strong. I open one of the books and start.

  De railroad bridge’s

  A sad song in de air.

  De railroad bridge’s

  A sad song in de air.

  Ever time de trains pass

  I wants to go somewhere.

  I stop and look at Daddy, but Daddy’s just looking at his hands. I keep reading.

  Homesick blues, Lawd,

  ’S a terrible thing to have.

  Homesick blues is

  A terrible thing to have.

  To keep from cryin’

  I opens ma mouth an’ laughs.

  Time I finish and look up, Daddy is just sitting quiet.

  “Sounds a lot like the blues,” he says finally.

  “Yup,” I say. “But don’t it remind you of back home?”
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br />   “Your Mama…she was smart too. Head was always in a book,” Daddy says, chuckling to himself.

  “Mama liked to read?”

  “Sure she did. She never got as much schoolin’ as she wanted. After her folks passed, she moved from kin to kin and couldn’t stay in one school long enough. But she had an aunt. Think her name was Genevieve, called her Aunt Gennie, lived up in Ohio and would check in on your mama whenever she came back home. And she always brought your mama books from up North. Tried to make sure she kept up her learning. First time I saw your mama she was reading….”

  Daddy looks away for a minute, then goes on.

  “Then when we got married, we had all we could do trying to keep up with planting and keeping house and then you came along. Wasn’t no time for books.”

  I think of the letters in the box under the bed.

  “Did Mama like poetry?”

  “Don’t think she knew much about poetry, but she liked to write.”

  I can feel the heat rise up to my face. Some secrets ain’t worth spilling.

  “Look, son”—Daddy stands up—“tomorrow you are gonna go and say you’re sorry to this boy Lymon.”

  “Yessir.”

  “He bothers you again, you walk away, understand?”

  “Yessir.”

  What about the library? I want to ask but don’t.

  Lymon don’t scare me near what he used to. We learned a lot about each other in the school yard today. Only thing scares me is bringing a ripped-up book back to Miss Cook at the library.

  I woke this morning to the wind whipping against the window, so I shove Daddy’s old gloves into my jacket pocket before I head to school. I’m surprised how fast I got used to the cold even though the wind makes me hunch up my shoulders and walk fast.

  Both me and Lymon got detention after school today, so I’m gonna have to wait to go to the library. Not that I’m in a rush to tell Miss Cook I destroyed a book. I hope she don’t take my library card away. If I think too hard on it, I’m gonna want to hurt Lymon all over again, so all the way to school I think about Mama watching and Daddy’s man-to-man talk and the Bible to get the mad thoughts out of my head.

  When I walk into the school yard it’s the first time since I started I don’t hear the name country boy. Some of the boys in my class even smile at me. Takes me a while to realize I musta done what they been wanting to do for a long while. Lymon’s still gonna be Lymon, ain’t no changing that. Just like I promised Daddy I would, I walk right up to him and say, “Sorry, Lymon.” He nods his head and walks away with Erroll. Clem is watching from the other side of the school yard. I’m still not sure what to make of Clem.